But here are some items that might be interesting on the subject (both more popular and more scholarly):

http://books.google.com/books?id=JJndnLori9wC&lpg=PA26&dq=Dominican%20Spirituality&pg=PA26#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=x6gBElBgymYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Dominican+Spirituality&ei=q9rVS5mjEYjgygTf_ajWCQ&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=r4S_4eczbGAC&pg=PR11&dq=Thomas+and+Albert+Classics&lr=&ei=ItvVS_DUCY_yzQTY1tW9CQ&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ga815P6vxygC&lpg=PA120&dq=Dominican%20Spirituality&pg=PA120#v=onepage&q=Dominican%20Spirituality&f=false (p. 119)

http://books.google.com/books?id=9A-RF38eK3wC&lpg=PA104&dq=Dominican%20Spirituality&pg=PR2#v=onepage&q&f=false

OK. Dominicans are not only scholastics, even the same guys! :-)

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/archives/442.html

At the beginning of his very interesting comments, he writes that

evangelicalism—even in its “Calvinist” manifestation—is a movement, not a church. Movements are led by impressive and charismatic figures. Even Ben Franklin wanted to cozy up to George Whitefield, a Calvinistic Anglican leader of the Great Awakening who was the closest thing to a rock star in 19th-century America. Yet the tendency, then as now, has been to downplay the ordinary ministry of the church in favor of the extraordinary movements of the moment.

I’ve argued elsewhere that evangelicalism is like the village green in older parts of the country, especially New England. There may be two or three churches on the grounds, but the green itself is a wide open space where people from those churches can spill out in conversation and cooperation.

Evangelicalism is not a church, though it often acts like one. It isn’t the big tent (more appropriate, given the history) that encompasses all of the churches on the green. It’s just . . . , well, the green.

You ask a good question, which reminds me of a story. I remember asking one of my professors at a Reformed seminary what he thought of pentecostals. His response was that they were irrationalists in line with Schleiermacher. So there’s your liberal connection, and I have not even addressed what happened to New England congregationalism or its modern denominational representative in the Church of Christ Congregational.

There is a general suspicion of pietist traditions because of what came out of German Lutheran pietism, among other historical developments, it seems to me. So, the battle is to hold together piety and theology, or, as you put it, a principled form of inclusion.

I think it’s possible. Jim Packer is a good example of a kind of puritan evangelical who has solid theology, but also charismatic leanings. And he’s a good Anglican. Maybe I could draw an analogy with Orthodoxy for a moment. If all dogmatic statements within the Orthodox churches ultimately intend to safeguard deification as the central doctrine, then I think it could be fair to say that and evangelical theology could be constructed in support of a theology of conversion that remains the core. This is how piety and theology could go together. Packer has already moved in that direction with Knowing God in which knowing is an experiential dynamic. Well, that’s my guess at how to get at your question anyway. But it’s still a guess on my part. . .you know. . .thoughts in process.

And on the other hand the other type you describe also seem to be more open to liberalism, so I wonder how useful that openness is. Is it more a desire to blur lines than to find a principled form of inclusion, for example?

Wolf Paul: I think the situations are very different, but that’s the subject of another post, and pretty much irrelevant to the point I was trying to explore here.

Joseph Sunde: A helpful point. Common opposition explains a lot of alliances, but it’s not a real basis for a common identity of the sort Evangelicalism is supposed to be. That’s what strikes someone who admires both wings but wonders how much they really have in common, especially since they argue so much about who defines their movement.

Joe: Life does recognize life, and I’d add that like recognizes like. There is something that holds believers together across what have been and could be sundering differences, and that is a very good thing, especially as Christianity loses its cultural predominance. But I suspect that the “like” in Evangelicalism today is more like that between traditional Lutherans and Calvinists than that between members of a single movement.

True. And this is a cause for embarrassment and disappointment.

I don’t want overly hasty disciplinary measures. But it seems some discipline of some people is overdue. I have never understood why some can disagree with virtually every point held by the Catholic Church, yet call themselves Catholics and claim to speak for Catholicism. Why bother, when there is a huge and thriving Protestant world to join?

The ecclesial petri dishes of Evangelicalism or Anglicanism provide useful lessons to the Catholic Church.